Business reporters love successful people. One reason more scrutiny was not brought to bear on financial institutions during the boom years by more reporters is that financial institutions are (or were) run by successful people.

You can’t argue with success.

Of course there are fewer successful people today. Even people who still have a lot of money, like partners at Goldman Sachs, now find themselves in an equivocal position. They have diminished reputations, which means they have diminished power, which could mean they will have diminished fortunes (although that hasn’t happened yet).

Andrew Ross Sorkin, the New York Times business reporter, may be even more in love with successful people than most of his colleagues. This is because he is charming and young and successful people love him back.

Sorkin went out the other day to Omaha to attend the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway at the invitation of its CEO, Warren Buffett, the most successful man in America. Sorkin was actually there as part of a three-person panel of journalists to question Buffett. That is, Buffett loves Sorkin, and Sorkin was there expressly to love Buffett in return.

Sorkin then wrote about the meeting in the Times using the most successful man in America’s defense of Goldman Sachs as a way to help rehabilitate the firm...